


Our Writing On The Wall (Was Lorem Ipsum After All)

by skyline



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Barry's basically slept with everyone idk, Bruce and Ollie want to out-brood each other, Fuckbuddies, Harrison is trying to do everything in his power to annoy Eobard, Kara and Ray are delightful sunshine creatures, M/M, Past Relationship(s), justice league in its infancy, which Barry can't get over
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-04 10:03:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6653446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's Barry Allen: always in love, always betrayed, and haunted by it, besides.</p><p>(Or, a few years in the future Barry is trying really hard to get over what happened with Eobard, and Hunter, and be the best Flash he can be. Only, it's really hard to do that when he keeps banging Harrison Wells, and occasionally Wally West, and he doesn't know what any of it means.</p><p>Featuring cameos from Supergirl's Kara and Gotham's Bruce Wayne, because Barry and Ollie are trying to kickstart the Justice League, and that's going about as well as can be expected.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This, uh. Wasn't supposed to be multi-chaptered. But more plot crept in than I thought and so...oops? 
> 
> Is there a place where people do Flash prompts, btw? Is that a thing? Direct me to a place I can go to do that, please.

“Go, go,” Cisco shoos him out the door. “Go be heroic.”

“Alright, okay.” Barry laughs, and he calls back, “Bye, Caitlin. Be good!”

“Always am,” Caitlin says. She waves a vague goodbye, her eyes glued to the numbers scrolling on the computer in front of her. “Get some of that chocolate from Kara, if you can.”

“She doesn’t show up to meetings with food,” Barry replies. Cisco pins him with a look. Barry whispers, “Okay, she shows up to meetings with a truckload of food. But it’s mine and I’m not sharing.”

“Generosity, man. It’s part of the hero handbook,” Cisco says reproachfully.

Barry snorts. “Caitlin eats all the good stuff, and you know it.”

“I don’t, apparently, because my two best friends are greedy hoarders.” Cisco shakes his head at them both and then says, “Come on, get outta here, you’re going to be late and Caitlin and I need to have a stern discussion about what we’re going to do with your decaying code of ethics.”

“Right.” Barry nods, schooling his face into something that he hopes conveys that he understands the serious nature of moral slippage.

Cisco is not impressed, so Barry goes with Plan B, which is run. Launching himself out of the lab, he kicks into a sprint without even thinking about it, the speed force alight in his veins.

He really is late.

But Ollie will be used to it, Captain Hunter’s envoy – whoever they are – won’t care at all, and Kara will be distracted with her actual wheelbarrow full of sweets. Diana might notice, if Diana bothers to show up, but Bruce is the only who might kick up a fuss. Bruce is also barely even a teenager.

Barry refuses to be cowed by someone who can’t reach the high shelves in a kitchen.

Everything falls to a standstill when he runs; people and animals, cars and planes. The earth is spinning on its axis, but Barry is the only thing really moving. This is the closest thing he can imagine to being a god on earth, and he savors the metallic taste of lightning on his tongue, right up until he skids to a halt in front of the imposing stone building they use for their meetings, about a thousand miles east of Central City.

Bruce is sitting, arms crossed, on the front steps of the hall, which used to be a court house. The word Justice is etched deep into the marble archway over the kid’s head, further emphasized by the downtick of Bruce’s mouth.

“You’re late.”

“Hey, yeah, maybe.” Barry tries to distract Bruce with a whole story of how Cisco almost blew something up in the lab, but even as he rambles on, he can tell that Bruce isn’t buying his excuses. “-so that happened,” Barry finishes. “Where’s Diana?”

“Off saving the world,” Bruce grunts, clearly feeling this would be a much better use of his time as well. “Kara fell face first into a cake, and that guy, Palmer, he’s watching.”

“What about Ollie?”

Bruce makes a face laced with disdain. “Do we have to include him?”

“Funny. He says the same thing about you,” Barry jokes, but then he adds a gentler, prodding, “Chin up, Batsy.”

“Don’t call me that.” Bruce glares, everything about him as serious as can possibly be, and as fucked up as Barry’s childhood was, he’s glad he never got so twisted, or so angry.

He’s also sad, because he doesn’t know how to help Bruce. Heroes are _supposed_ to know this stuff, probably. They’re supposed to be good at it. It’s chapter one of that handbook Cisco keeps talking about.

But there’s a lot of things in that handbook, and Barry can’t live up to them all.

Bruce stomps inside the courthouse, with Barry dogging at his heels. He shouts, “Okay, the Flash is here. We can start!”

Kara squeals in delight, her mouth painted in pink frosting.

Ray is observing her with this slight smile, like she’s a combination of precious and fascinating, both of which are true. But he still hasn’t gotten over the whole alien thing. He’s likely analyzing her every move for science.

Of course, Ollie ignores them all, because he likes to give Bruce a run for his money on who can brood the most in a single day.

Barry slides into the chair next to him and bumps his shoulder companionably. “Your face is going to stick that way, Queen.”

Lips twitching, Oliver replies, “No one can see it behind the hood, anyway.”

Barry does not tell Oliver that he can’t always wear the hood, because Oliver will probably be doling out vigilante justice until he hits a hundred and five. It’s the kind of man he is, which is both fearsome and admirable.

Barry’s never going to get that whole fearsome thing down. And, at the rate he’s going, he’ll get offed by a speedster

“All right,” Ray pipes up. “Time to call this meeting to order.”

He pulls out a pad of paper and a pen, even though Barry doesn’t believe for a moment that Rip Hunter cares about keeping minutes for their meeting. It’s why he sends Ray, or sometimes Cold, in his stead.

Lazy bastard.

“Last time,” Ray intones, like the announcer on a bad television drama. He skims the pages, grumbling under his breath about captains and cold guns and ingrates. “We discussed- uh, something. Snart takes terrible notes.”

Oliver eyes Ray with deep suspicion, either because he doesn’t trust his penmanship or because he hasn’t gotten over the whole thing where Felicity and Ray used to have sex on the regular. Oliver’s not really the type that likes to share. “We divvied up tasks.”

“Right! Yes.”

Ray claps his hands, consistently delighted, by everything. He beams at Kara. Kara beams back. Bruce rolls his eyes and Ollie huffs irritably. Barry wants to drop his head in his hands and hide.

Instead, he says brightly, “Let’s get started.”

* * *

 

After, Barry could go home.

He could, but he doesn’t.

He nearly wipes out in the gravel leading up a driveway that isn’t his. Eobard Thawne’s old house looms ahead, a monochrome monstrosity of glass and curved lines.

Barry hates coming here.

There was a time when he was young. He doesn’t remember it clearly, anymore, but he knows that everything innocent about him stopped at this place.

Still, Barry marches up to it and knocks.

Harrison opens the door, wearing a red Flash t-shirt, the bolt a bright, shocking spot on his chest. Barry blinks at him. Then he blinks some more.

“You joined my fan club?”

“Never.” Harrison scowls, but waves him in, the door hanging open as he pads, barefoot, across the cold floor that used to belong to a man with his face. “Glad you’re here, Allen.”

Barry certainly hasn’t heard that before. Harrison’s default is grumpy, not gracious.

He scans around the room, trying to pinpoint whether or not he’s fallen into a parallel universe.

Again.

On every conceivable surface, there’s an absolute mess covering the sleek, futuristic furniture Eobard left behind.

Which is odd, Barry thinks. In the lab, Harrison is fastidious about being neat.

QVC is blasting in the background, a tinny, echoing voice explaining that the diamonds are _real_. Barry asks, “Are you- Is everything alright?”

“Sure.” Harrison beckons him over, “Come here for a sec,” and Barry tries to get over the cognitive dissonance of his childhood idol wearing a t-shirt that might as well have Barry’s face on it.

It gets even weirder when Harrison loops an arm around Barry’s neck, pulling him in close – too close – and holding a polaroid camera out in front of them.

“Say cheese,” he instructs.

Barry barely has time to grimace before the flash goes off.

“Good, great,” Harry says. “I’m going to frame this.”

“Do I want to know what’s happening right now?”

Harrison’s gaze flits to him, lightning quick.

“I’m eliminating the ghost of Eobard Thawne,” Harrison says, with a note of finality in his voice that warns Barry not to argue.

So Barry asks, “You believe in ghosts?”

“I believe,” Harrison begins, and he is careful in his enunciation, “That if that imposter ever comes back here, he won’t recognize this house by the time I’m done.” His lips twist into a semblance of a grin, teeth sharp and glittering. “In fact, I’m making certain that he’ll find everything in this place singularly _annoying_.”

“Devious,” Barry says, and he tries not to shiver at the idea of Eobard Thawne ever traipsing back into Central City. “QVC’s a nice touch. It’s so tacky that Eobard’s eyes would roll back in his head.”

Harry’s eyes flick towards the massive television, partly visible through the foyer. “Nah. That I just like.”

“Of course you do.” He sniffs the air. Hopefully, he asks, “Do I smell guac?”

Inclining his head, Harrison walks towards the mostly dark living room, where he’s got a tray table set up with a pretty sweet spread, if he was twenty and in college.

Barry dives into the fizzy drinks and dried strips of beef and barbecue chips, delighting in all the junk food he can possibly eat. Kara shared her cake, but that was like, forty minutes ago and now he’s _starving_.

Harrison rolls his eyes, planting himself on one end of the couch, while Barry sprawls out on the other. He shucks his boots and tucks his toes under Harrison’s legs while he balances the bowl of guacamole on his stomach. On TV, a lady’s trying to sell them some kind of medieval torture device that is apparently ideal for hanging earrings, or something.

“Who’re you hiding from this time?” Harrison asks, the glow of the television painting his cheeks blue and white. Shadows cut skeletal angles into his face. 

“Who says I’m hiding?” Barry asks, through a mouthful of chips and avocado. “’m brave. Says so on the nightly news.”

Harrison snorts, then, because he expresses affection through disbelief and sarcasm.

It’s one of the things Barry likes about this version of Dr. Wells – he’s never, ever nice, except when it’s completely unexpected. He thinks etiquette is something earned, and so few people make the effort. Barry doesn’t trust much anymore, but Harry’s antipathy almost makes him think that he can.  

If only his face wasn’t shared by Satan.

He crunches through some more chips, eyes growing heavy while the night drags on. Harrison’s thumb presses warm, soft circles into Barry’s ankle, and with his free hand, he stuffs pieces of jerky into his mouth, pungent and spicy.

Barry wiggles his feet underneath Harrison’s thigh, sinking down into the cushions. Cheek pressed against the arm of the couch, he asks, “Can I stay here tonight?”

Harrison lifts one shoulder, never looking away from the pretty model, demonstrating that her jewelry rack actually works!

“See, if I care.”

* * *

 

He has a nightmare.

He has a lot of nightmares, these days. Harrison Wells runs towards him in a blur of yellow and red, and the closer his approach, the more his face changes, a shock of blond falling across his forehead, and Barry is struck with the abrupt realization that the man he shared a bed with, for months, the man he admired and adored, is a complete and utter stranger.

Then the image morphs, Eobard’s body melting into the gray shroud of a time wraith, lengthening, lengthening, and its Jay Garrick, with his proud jaw, with that line of bone where Barry used to suck bruises blue. He tells Barry he understands what it means to be a hero, something so close to a deity. He’s the only other man in the universe who gets what it is to be the Flash.

Only when he speaks, his voice is gravelly and laced with lightning the color of electric sparks.

Barry stumbles back, only to be wrapped in Eobard’s arm, Eobard with Harrison’s face, and he says, tenderly, “Mr. Allen,” Barry’s name a prayer on his lips.

Barry jolts awake, breathing hard. In the low, dusky light, his naked chest is washed out and sallow. He can see the frantic race his heart is running, the thud of it shaking his ribs. Barry presses the heel of his hand over his sternum and tries, and fails, and tries to breathe.

He scrambles off of Harrison’s couch. The leather is stuck against his flesh; it stings when he rips free, but Barry doesn’t care. He’s desperate to get out, to get away, from this house, where Eobard Thawne’s toxicity has seeped into the floorboards.

Then he catches sight of the polaroid of himself and Harry, Flash logo at the ready, discarded on the tray table, alongside the guac-encrusted bowl and a fine dusting of crumbs.

It’s not fair.

The nightmares that plague him are relentless, lacking mercy. Barry doesn’t know how to let them go.

Nor does he want to. They remind him of what he was like before Eobard Thawne or Hunter Zolomon. Back then, he didn’t get that people were monsters, and, because of it, he couldn’t keep anyone safe.

He’s different now. He’s a weapon, and a savior. He’s celebrated across the city.

And yet he runs for Harrison Wells’s bedroom at the first sign of trouble. Old habits die hard, he supposes.

Barry stands in the doorway of Harrison’s bedroom before he even makes the conscious decision to go, his gaze glued to the wing of Harrison’s shoulder blade where it protrudes from the sheets. His dark hair is a startling contrast from his pale skin, and the comforter – red; bright, crimson red. How Eobard would hate that – makes it worse, this black and white character drowning in this pool of color.

He’s not a speedster, this man. Not like the…the old him. But in a way, he makes them. He creates people who can do incredible things, and if what Barry is feels so close to godlike, then Harrison Wells basically is.

“I can feel you staring,” Harrison grumbles, prescient in all things.

His voice cracks from sleep and disuse.

“Sorry,” Barry apologizes, and when Harrison turns over, he steps cautiously into the room.

He was hoping for this, probably. For Harrison to wake, and soothe the night terrors away. Barry perches at the edge of Harrison’s bed, running his hand across the duvet.

He likes the red.

“Bad dream?” Harrison grunts, and it’s not love, laid bare in his eyes. He stretches, his body long and thin, and Barry follows the movement involuntarily, focusing on the pert, pink reveal of his nipple.

He leans towards Harrison and confides, “The worst.”

Lips thin, Harrison replies, “You say that every time, Allen.”

Barry nods, because he does, and they are. The worst, every time, these constant reminders that this is who he is. Barry Allen: always in love, always betrayed, and haunted by it, besides.

“Can I stay with you?”

A small noise of protest escapes Harrison’s lips, but he shoves over on the bed, giving Barry access to body-warm sheets.

He slips in between them, mindful that all he’s wearing are his underwear and a pair of Harrison’s threadbare sweat pants. Harrison is equally bare, clad in boxer briefs and that thin haze of slumber he hasn’t quite shaken off. Barry inclines his body towards him, inching closer on a field of red.

Mildly, he asks, “Are you going back to sleep?”

“That was the plan,” Harrison mutters into his pillow, forever cantankerous.

Barry holds back a smile. “What if I’ve got a better idea?”

“I can guarantee you, you don’t,” Wells replies flatly. “Unless that plan is you going home.”

Less than apologetically, Barry says, “Nope.”

He strikes then, before Harrison can work himself into a snit about it. Quicksilver fast, he stretches his body over Harrison’s, straddling his thighs.

Harry sags back against the bed. “See, I liked the plan where I got to go back to sleep much better,” but his hands weight themselves on Barry’s hips with practiced ease.

“No, you didn’t,” Barry replies with certainty. He leans down, pressing his lips to the hot hollow beneath Harrison’s chin. “Tell me you were dreaming about me.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Tell me,” Barry teases, tongue licking at the faint remnants of Harrison’s aftershave, his skin. He can feel Harrison’s resultant shudder all the way down to his toes. Barry smooths his hands over the narrow planes of Harrison’s chest, wiry and muscular, although never what he remembers.

Breath hitching, Harrison says, “Allen, I swear to god.”

Barry jerks back, admonishing, “ _Harry_. Do you want me to stop?”

Giving every appearance of being pained, Harrison grinds out an exasperated, “No.”

“Good,” Barry hums, satisfied.

He sets back to his mission, peppering kisses against Harrison’s throat, on a gradual trek lower. He lathes the lines of Harrison’s clavicle with attention, lightly scraping his teeth against bone and reveling in the way it makes Harrison squirm beneath him.

He bucks his hips, erection glancing against Barry’s hardening dick, and in the soft glow of morning blossoming around them, Barry can admit to himself that this is why he’d come here, to this house that he hates and this mad scientist of a man, who doesn’t seem to care much either way about him.

He finds Harrison – and Eobard, fake Wells, real Wells, and any variation thereof – stupid hot. Always has; his very first wet dream came after seeing the guy on the news. And there’s comfort here, after he wakes up screaming; he can make a version of the specter that was Dr. Wells _beg_.

Barry rolls purposefully against Harrison, pleased by the startled noise that rumbles through his throat. It bounces around in Barry’s ribcage, setting his blood molten, and he does it again, because he can. Then he resumes his adventure, flicking Harrison’s nipple with his fingertips and then following the movement with his tongue.

The further south he gets, sucking red marks into the planes of Harrison’s abdomen, the more vocal his answers are. Sometimes they’re curses, more rarely endearments, and regardless, they spur Barry on.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck.” Harrison covers his eyes with an arm and tells Barry, “You gonna coast on those boyish good looks of yours forever, or are you going to do something useful with that mouth.”

Barry chuckles, because Eobard was never so rude. He was always tender, always precise. He was a gentleman in bed, mostly to offset the part where he was a psychopath out of it, and even when Barry had seen danger glinting in his possessive gaze, it never translated into what they did, never got rough or out of hand. Harrison can’t be more different, groping and pawing at Barry as he thrashes and swears up a storm. But they’re still here, in Eobard’s bed, wrapped in crimson sheets and too much lust, and nothing has ever been more vindicating.

He licks his lips, tasting Harrison; traces of sweat, something muskier, and this bitter tang of soap. He kisses the cut of his hipbone and suggests, “You should try putting in farmhouse sinks. And reclaimed wooden furniture. He’d hate that.”

Harrison narrows bleary eyes at Barry, like maybe he wants to know why he’s so knowledgeable about Eobard’s stylistic preferences. But all he says is, “How do you think he’d feel about barn doors?”

Barry laughs again, softly, mouth moving over flushed skin. When he peers up through his eyelashes, he can see the way Harrison is watching him – not in rapt fascination, the way Eobard would.

This Wells’s eyes are hard, cold. He’s into what Barry’s doing, but it’s not paternalistic or awed, and it doesn’t spring from any kind of sick need to be closer. It’s sex, plain and simple, and his dick twitches with interest every time Barry sways closer.

When he reaches the one place where Harrison most wants him to go, he’s rewarded with a cacophony of cussing and Harrison’s fingertips, digging into his scalp to force him closer. Barry takes it, opening to Harrison so he can wrap his lips around the base of his cock, the briefest tickle of bristly hair against his skin before he tugs back, bringing his fingers into the game. Barry works his mouth over Harrison, keeping a balance between suction and tiny flicks of his tongue.

Harrison’s hands pull at his hair, his thumbs a constant pressure on Barry’s temples, his scalp, the hollows behind his ears. Whenever Barry speeds his rhythm, so it’s less like a caress and more like Harrison fucking his mouth, he’s remunerated with a long, needy moan. He has to hold Harry’s hips down to keep him from thrusting up, but Harrison’s thighs move in time to what Barry is doing, the constant motion reflected in the throb of his cock between Barry’s lips.

“Allen,” he pants, and then, more choked, “ _Barry_ ,” coming in long, hot pulses down Barry’s throat.

Barry swallows his release, greedy for the bitter tang of it. He tests his tongue against Harrison in miniscule laps, gathering up the last of it until Harrison begins to soften in his mouth.

When Barry pulls off, Harrison’s incredible blue eyes pin him on his knees, storm tossed and dark. He lurches forward, rolling Barry onto his back. When Barry looks up at him, a shadowy figure through his lashes, Harrison cradles his face in his hands. He swipes his thumb along the crest of Barry’s lower lip, stained with cum.

He murmurs, “I’m not him, Allen.”

And Barry knows that. This version of Harrison Wells has no solar flares behind his eyes, no lightning lighting his pupils, no buzz in his atoms. This Harrison Wells is not Eobard Thawne in myriad ways; the first and foremost of them is that Barry does not trust him, and he never will.

That’s how he protects himself, now.

All the same, he lets Harrison claim his mouth; wicked intent and frustration and outrage mingling into one desperate, world-shattering kiss.

* * *

 

“Barry. You’re here.” Cisco’s voice does that thing where it is high pitched and strained. Possibly because Barry didn’t bother putting on pants after waking, or a shirt, or anything resembling decency.

He’d been hoping for eggs. Harrison makes good eggs. Instead he gets…whatever this is. 

Equally tense, Barry asks, “What is that?”

Cisco frowns at where his arms are wrapped around the waist of a giant, gaudy, gold rendering of the Flash.

From somewhere near the vicinity of the statue’s butt, Harrison asks, “You don’t like it? I think it screams class.”

“Yeah, I bet a lot of things are screaming in this house,” Cisco supplies meaningfully, and he does this lewd motion with his eyebrows that makes Barry burn with shame.

To Harrison, he says, “You’re taking this a little far, don’t you think?”

“Progress will not be halted,” Harrison says primly. “Besides. No one ever annoyed that monster more than you.”

The words lacerate the gaping wound Eobard left on his heart. Barry blinks back the onslaught of agony, sick of the way that years later, he still aches. “You’re right. You should put in the foyer. Nothing greets guests better than a massive tribute to me.”

“I’ll say,” Cisco’s lips curve. “Speaking of massive, Have you seen your package on this thing? It’s huge!”

“Not at all true to life,” Harrison deadpans, and that’s hurtful.

That is a very hurtful thing, but Barry is not going to bicker about the size of his dick when Cisco’s standing right there. He covers an awkward cough with his hand and tells Harrison, “You owe me eggs.”

Indignant, Harrison’s hands drop off the statue, and subsequently, the Flash’s ass. “I owe you?”

Barry licks his lips pointedly, and he can tangibly feel the way that Harrison winces. “Eggs sound delicious. I’ll go make those.”

Cisco watches the exchange with barely concealed glee. When Harry stalks into the kitchen, he turns on Barry and says, “Alright, degenerate. Why didn’t you tell me you and Harry were getting nasty?”

“Because no one is doing- that,” Barry lies, less than smooth.

“Yeah. I walk around in my underwear in other dude’s places all the time.”

“You play video games in your boxers at my place.”

“That’s entirely different.” Cisco’s ears pink.

“How?” Barry challenges.

He’s exhausted, too many nights spent running from Eobard and Hunter in his dreams.

“I’m not attracted to you!”

“Thanks.”

“You know what I mean. You and socio-Flash had a thing going. We all knew about it.” Cisco stops, clearly rearranging the words in his mouth. “Okay, Caitlin told me about it after the fact, but still.”

Barry’s throat works as he fights down a flood of bile and self-loathing. Behind his eyelids, he sees quiet evenings at the lab, when Dr. Wells – his hero, his mentor – pulled him by the wrist into empty alcoves. The seclusion of the abandoned halls amplified the sounds they made, the moans Wells plied from Barry’s lips echoing back at odd angles, like so many ghosts.

Caitlin…knew.

“Aw, don’t look at me like that. She was basically Well’s- um. _Thawne’s_ right hand. In a completely non-sexual way. Which is to say-“ Cisco is flustered, and not saying anything the way he wants. He sighs. “Yeah. She knew.”

 _What about Jay_?’ Barry wants to ask. Did she know about him too?

He doesn’t get the words out, because he can’t. There’s no way Caitlin knows.

What Barry and Jay did was so…isolated. Fast. Jay understood the way electricity roiled off Barry in waves when he emerged from the heat of battle. He understood that all that energy had to go somewhere, and the best place was under the fast, hard strokes of Jay’s hand, biting his anger and desperation into the other man’s throat.

It turns out, Jay understood because he wasn’t Jay at all, but it’s been years and Barry still hasn’t come to terms with that. He’s been tricked one too many times.

“Okay.” Barry does his best not to have a panic attack about this, about the secrets that have drowned him for years. Cisco and Caitlin love him. They don’t care that he’s not one hundred percent superhuman. That he makes mistakes. That he has so much pain wracking his bones that it makes him want to scream. Barry pastes on an upbeat smile. “There’s nothing to tell, though. About Harry and me.”

“Sure, man.” Cisco holds his hands in front of him, palms out. It’s like he’s trying to calm a shying animal, or worse, one with too many teeth and claws. “Whatever you say. I get it, for what it’s worth.”

Alarmed, Barry asks, “Get what?”

“Why you’d go for Harry. If you can get past the part where he’s got the charm of a grouchy meerkat, he’s very…distinguished. I’ve never been much into the science types myself, but if that’s your kink, have at it.”

“There’s nothing to be having at,” Barry grits out. “Nothing is happening here.”

“Sure.” Cisco cocks an eyebrow, tone turning sarcastic. “Now, why don’t we get you some pants?”

* * *

 

Barry stops by the crime lab, wearing one of Wells’s black t-shirts and a pair of jeans he left at the house the last time he’d come around.

It takes exactly point five seconds for Joe to track him down, like he’s the one with super speed.

“We missed you at dinner.”

“Oh. Uh. Meeting ran over,” Barry says, hating lying to Joe, even as he does it. “Did I miss chicken parm?”

“Iris whipped it up special,” Joe says. He eyes Barry’s outfit. “Casual Friday already?”

“I stayed with a friend. Didn’t have anything else to wear.” He sounds lame. He knows he sounds lame, and like a lying liar who lies. And he still can’t stop, because to do that, he’d have to explain everything to Joe.

Joe is definitely not ready to hear…everything.

Of course, he will never want to hear that. In his usual no-nonsense manner, Joe asks, “Is this about Iris?”

“Wha- why would it be about Iris?” Barry flinches. “Did she, uh. Say something?”

“I get that it makes you uncomfortable that they’re building a museum, and that Iris is consulting, but she loves this gig, Barry.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, sure. She needed a break from all that writing about murder and chaos and stuff. I’m not…it doesn’t bother me.”

The Flash Museum actually bugs the hell out of him, in that it is incredibly embarrassing and has given Oliver a license to mock him for all eternity, but Barry gets why Iris was asked to work with the curators. She’s basically the media’s official Flash expert, and more to the point, she’s sure to be protecting Barry’s best interests there.

“So you’re okay with it?” Joe questions, not buying any of Barry’s bullshit.

“Sure. Absolutely, I’m the…most…okay with it.”

“And you’ll be home for dinner. Tonight.”

“I’ll bring pizza. You want Keystone or Coast?”

“Keystone. Obviously,” Joe scoffs, because the west coast’s best pizza can’t compare to Keystone. “I’ll invite Iris.”

“Right. Um. Is Wally going to be there?”

Joe blinks. “Where else would he be?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Barry runs a hand through his hair, shifty as fuck. He says, “I’ll bring extra.”

* * *

 

That afternoon’s meeting of the league of heroes goes about as smoothly as all the ones that came before. Diana doesn’t show up; she’s actually performing heroics somewhere that is not here.

No one is surprised by this, because Diana is the actual definition of heroism.

Meanwhile, Barry listens to Bruce and Oliver gripe at each other for close to an hour, Kara’s head swinging back and forth as she follows the argument with the attention others might afford a tennis match.

Occasionally Ray pipes in with something useful, only for Ollie or Bruce to shut him down. The only thing those two seem to agree on is everyone else’s complete and utter wrongness.

The whole process of trying to work together is frustrating. Barry and Ollie came up with the idea ages ago, a way to call in backup when things got too heavy. They didn’t account for all the rules they’d have to make; what qualifies a true call for help and what is basically a normal day of superhero-ing.

Or vigilantics, in Ollie’s case. He refuses to use the H-word.

Finally, when the meeting comes to a standstill, Barry props his elbows on the table, head in his hands, and groans. “Do you guys maybe want to get ice cream?”

Bruce crosses his arms. Oliver shakes his head.

He doesn’t quite say _you have failed this city_ , but the sentiment is clear.

“Okay, your loss,” Ray cheers. He rocks back and forth on the legs of his chair, urging, “I want ice cream. Let’s go guys.”

“We can have it at my hotel!” Kara agrees. Bruce sneers at her bubbly joy, and she ruffles his hair and wheedles conspiratorially, “Come on, Batsy. We’ll get you mint chocolate chip!”

He tries to swat her hand away, but it’s about as effective as a fly would be. Maid of might, and everything. Kara glows with so much energy and happiness that she’s practically a lighthouse.

“Knock knock. You guys finished up yet?” Felicity asks, her presence in the doorway shocking the hell out of Barry, and Kara, and Ray. Ollie and Bruce seem utterly unsurprised to see her, but that’s because you can’t sneak up on ninja assassins.

“Hey! You’re here!” Barry yelps. He throws Ollie a look that is a cross between reproachful and distressed. “At our secret place.”

“It’s not a secret from her,” Oliver rolls his eyes. “Please, Barry.”

Felicity smirks. “Sorry to invade your fortress of solitude, Bar.”

“It’s a fortress of _justice_ ,” Kara corrects, crinkles at the corner of her eyes reflecting her amusement.

Felicity gives Kara a grin that is both adoring and enchanted, which is the kind of expression Barry imagines Kara gets often, and is also nice to see on Felicity’s face. She’s stronger than she was when Barry first met her.

But her light has dimmed some. Compares to Kara, whose cheerfulness is relentless, whose enthusiasm is unbounded, the disparity is glaring.

Felicity was like that, once, and Barry will never be able to completely understand why she isn’t, any longer.

“We were going to get ice cream,” he tells her. “If you want to come.”

She gives him a sweet, sad smile. “There’s a situation back in Star City. I only came for Oliver-“

Oliver jostles past her then, shouting, “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” He’s got the vexed whine of a ten year old boy.

Or Bruce.

“Nice to see you too, Felicity,” Felicity replies, dryly. “I hope your day is going well.”

Barry grins at her. “You’ve got your hands full with him.”

She exhales noisily, loud enough for Oliver to hear and perk up. “It’s my cross to bear.”

“Felicity,” Oliver hollers, and he’s already on the front steps of the old court house, thinking happy thoughts about leather and arrows and blood.

“Oops, gotta go.”

Ray watches her leave, a bit wistful, and Barry is wearing an identical expression.

Oliver’s a lucky bastard.

Then, Ray says hopefully, “Ice cream?”

“Ice cream!” Kara cheers.

Barry echoes the sentiment, but Bruce just shakes his head at them.

“If you go into a diabetic coma and die,” he comments, “I want you to know it’s Darwinism at work.”

Kara looks to Barry. Barry looks to Ray. They all turn on Bruce and yell, “Batsy!” and tackle him onto the ground.

That goes about as well as can be expected when you’re working with a teenage Dark Knight.

* * *

 

Kara flops back against the comforter. “This is so great. My parents never let me eat ice cream in bed.”

“Mine either,” Barry agrees through a mouthful of chocolate. He pokes at a hole Bruce made with his like, bat shuriken, in his suit and wonders how much shit Cisco is going to give him for this.

“We’re going to stain the sheets,” Ray worries, the most adult of all of them, even as he cradles a tub of rocky road.

Barry and Kara crinkle their noses at him, and even though it takes a minute, he goes, “Oh, wait. I’m rich. I can buy new ones.”

“‘m so glad,” Barry announces. “That we have eight more tubs.”

Ray glances down at his stomach, the muscles visible under the thin fabric of his shirt. Then he looks to the stack of ice cream tubs and says, mournfully, “I can only manage the rest of this one.”

“Aw, don’t worry,” Kara says brightly. “Barry and I can finish the rest.”

“I am both awed and disgusted.”

Barry grins. “We get that a lot.”

Things are easier with Kara and Ray than with Ollie, or Bruce, or Snart, when he comes around. They’re so carefree, even though Kara has to cross dimensions just to show up for these things, and Ray usually shows up with some variation of a temporal side effect that manifests in slurred speech or the left side of his face slackening, or once, prolific vomiting.

Barry leans his head back against Kara’s stomach and says, “How’s National City faring, these days?”

“Beautifully.” Kara’s smile belongs on a saint, right up until she shoves a gigantic spoonful of ice cream into it. Her blonde waves bounce as she chews. “Winn says hi!”

“Who’s Winn?” Ray asks.

“Sadly not my best friend,” Barry answers. “But if he lived here, he would be.”

“Best friends. I remember those. They’re people that don’t want to kill you, right?” Ray digs his spoon into his tub of ice cream and says, “We don’t have those kinds of people on the Waverider.”

“Hey, now. You and Snart seem to be getting along…better. Ish.”

Kara points her spoon in Barry’s direction, silently agreeing.

Ray says, “I’m wearing him down,” like it’s no big thing. Barry’s enjoying the ongoing domestication of Captain Cold as much as the next guy, but he thinks Ray should take a little more credit where it’s due.

“What about you, Barry?” Ray asks.

“What about me what?”

Pointedly, Kara says, “He’s asking how things are going in Central City.” She screws up her nose cutely and says, “I think.”

“Bingo.” Ray gives Kara a thumbs up, and she does a tiny, graceless victory dance, jolting Barry’s head from her abdomen. He forgives her because, like everything else she does, it’s adorable.

Kara is the alien equivalent of a golden retriever puppy, so she can’t really help it. She sticks her finger in his ear and says, “C’mon, spill.”

Barry groans, shaking her away.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

They don’t seem to believe him.

Funny, seeing as how Barry’s becoming such an accomplished liar and everything.

“Barry,” Ray starts, tone knowing.

Barry does not want Ray to know anything. Because nothing says conviction like exaggerating your words, he says, “I’m fine, guys,” putting extra emphasis on the word _fine_.

Kara quits jabbing at him and runs her hands through his hair, instead, which is nice. She says, “If you’re ever not fine, you can talk to us. That’s all.”

Ray nods vigorously. “Kara is wise and also telling the truth.”

“Thanks,” Barry says.

He’s touched.

He’s also squeamish, because he was never great at talking about his love life when it consisted of a crush on Iris and the company of his own hand. Now that its expanded into the clusterfuck of evil speedsters, strange fuck buddies, and the occasional decent date with a nice girl, he has no idea what to say about it.

What he does choose to say is, “Hate to eat and run, but I have to run to Keystone to grab some pizza for Joe.”

“Boo!” Kara proclaims. She props herself up on her elbows and scowls down at Barry. “You only ate two tubs of ice cream.”

Barry pauses, because she has a very valid point. Then he grabs a tub, flashing his teeth. “Don’t worry. I’m bringing this one with me for the road.”

* * *

 

Barry stands in front of the front door to his own house and can’t bring himself to open the door. The bottom of the pizza box is burning his hands.

He’s made a mess of everything. But it’s his mess, to fix or to keep fucking up.

Barry takes a deep breath and pushes open the door. “I’m home!”

“Barry!” Iris calls. “Dad was worried you were going to skip out on us again.”

“Was he?” Barry lifts his eyebrows at her, letting her extricate the pizza box from his hands. “No faith, Joe.”

Joe’s at the table, with Wally to his left. He lifts his head to call back something snappy, but Barry’s focus has zeroed in on the electric sizzle of Wally’s gaze. Coming back here was a mistake.

“Barry?” Iris tugs at his sleeve. “Earth to Barry. Where’d you go?”

Barry refocuses on her, the calm of her dark eyes and the pretty scent of her perfume. Iris is everything that represents home to him. He says, “It’s been a long day.”

“Well come on, sit down. Tell us about it.”

She saunters into the dining room, Barry at her heels. His thoughts are all muddled, haywire in Wally’s presence. Regardless, he slaps Wally a high five and gives Joe a weary smile.

For a little while, it’s okay, going through the motions of family. Then Wally’s foot bumps his under the table, and Barry goes stiff all over.

He has to force his cheer the rest of the night, even when Iris begins a story about a woman who brought a scrap of red fabric to the museum that she was convinced belonged to the Flash’s costume – specifically his under things – and that brought about a rousing discussion of what Barry wears under the suit.

When dinner ends, Wally pulls him aside. Excruciatingly earnest, he says, “Look, if you’re not coming home because of me…Don’t be like that. I’m not going to make things weird.”

Barry wants to tell him that things are already weird. That sleeping with him was a mistake of the variety superheroes are not supposed to make.

It was one time, a few weeks back, and the moment Barry did it he knew that he’d lost something.

But he can’t say that to Wally. It wouldn’t be fair. Wally doesn’t know anything about Barry’s night terrors, about the way that he’s got Eobard’s love in black palm prints all over his body, Hunter’s hands tainting his soul. He wouldn’t appreciate finding out that the night it happened, when Barry accidentally vaulted into Wally in the kitchen at two am, agitated from a dream where Dr. Wells and Jay blended into one and plied screams from Barry’s throat, he was half-hard and completely brokenhearted, shattered in such a way that he needed, more than anything, to be touched.

He fucked Wally to forget.

The morning after, he was in that same kitchen when Iris walked in.

She is this good, noble, beautiful woman – the person who teaches him what superheroes are mean to be. She gets better every day. And Barry has always thought that Iris is his destiny. It made what had happened to him, what these evil men had done, wound less, knowing that salvation was just around the corner.

But whatever future he thought he and Iris had died, that night before. She was pushing buttons on the coffee machine, digging around for pots and pans, chattering endlessly about the museum dedicated completely to Barry’s nobility, and all he could think was _I bent your brother over that counter_.

He hasn’t been able to look her in the eye since.  

“No, Wally. It’s not your fault,” Barry says, and it’s not enough of an apology for what he feels.

* * *

 

He could sleep at home, in his bed.

But Wally is still there, and Barry can’t face him on a good day.

When he finds himself in front of Harrison’s house, it’s a little like defeat. Barry walks in anyway, not bothering to knock.

He finds Harrison on his knees, polishing the feet of the Flash statue, but that’s not what grabs his attention.

“Uh, what is that?” Barry points to a metal hat in the corner of the foyer, hanging discarded on a coat hook. The sight floods his chest with a mix of antipathy and sorrow.

“My helmet.”

Barry corrects, “Jay’s helmet,” only noticing the absence of wings afterwards.

“No.” Harrison shrugs. “Jay wasn’t in the War of the Americas. I was.”

“You were a solider?”

“The tail end. It was a long time ago. Before Jesse.”

Barry’s throat closes up. How much is there about Earth-2’s Harrison Wells that he’s yet to learn?

He covers by asking, “Am I rusting?”

“Heavens forbid.” Harrison sits back on his heels. “What are you doing here?”

“Don’t I have an open invitation?”

Harrison chews on his bottom lip, peering up at Barry for a single, long second before stating, “I’m pretty sure I have never, ever said that.”

“It’s almost like you don’t enjoy my company.”

“Statue doesn’t talk as much,” Harrison shrugs, cavalier in his dedication to boorishness.

Barry shoves his hands in his pockets, and without meaning to he says, “I mean, my dick’s smaller than the statue’s too, so.”

“I didn’t say that, either.” Harrison rocks back onto his knees, lifting the rag he’s using to clean. “I said it isn’t true to life.”

“Ergo…” Barry trails off.

“Ergo, you’re bigger, Allen. Don’t make me repeat it.” He returns to polishing, paying special attention to the detailing around the inanimate Flash’s ankles. “What’s wrong?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Because you’re usually inanely optimistic, and that’s been lacking, lately?”

“Keep the compliments coming, Wells.”

Harry throws his hands in the air. “Fine. Don’t tell me. Give me your opinion on this; I was thinking about installing Gideon in the house, and the lab at large.”

Barry hisses in through his teeth. “I don’t know about that. Ray says the version on their time ship watches while he’s in the shower. Also, she can see in your head when you’re sleeping?”

“Then she is definitely not coming in here.” Harrison is supremely scandalized. “Your earth is a strange place.”

“So you keep saying.”

Barry plops on the floor beside him, folding his legs about a second before impact. “I can’t go home.”

Harrison pauses in his quest to ensure the Flash has the most burnished boots in all of Central City. “This isn’t a hotel.”

Barry glares at him. “I’m staying on the couch.”

“No.” Harrison says. He frowns thoughtfully. “You’ll just wake up in the middle of the night, and come hog all my covers.”

Barry meets the proclamation with silence, unsure how to handle the part where he’s been rejected. There’s too much to unpack there, from the fact that Harrison’s always been a sure thing to the overwhelming sense of loss, his replacement Wells slipping out of his grip.

Then Harry says, “You can sleep in my bed,” and Barry doesn’t have to face any of it.

Not just yet.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry can never tell if Harry likes him or finds him convenient, and sometimes he’s so utterly, chokingly fearful that it’s the former that he can’t breathe.

Harrison’s hand curls possessively around Barry’s hip, two fingers angling inside of him with short, quick thrusts. Against Barry’s neck, he commands, “Relax, Allen.”

Barry keens and fucks back against him. The time when he was good at following orders has long since passed.

Harrison’s laughter is low and disparaging, like he anticipated nothing short of rebellion.

He wraps his free hand around Barry’s cock and hisses, “Can’t you ever behave?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Barry demands, swiveling his hips until Harrison sinks up to his knuckles inside of him.

In response, Harrison skims over Barry’s cock, too light for what he wants, the barely there pressure a teasing reprimand.

“Harry,” Barry begs, rocking into his grip, trying for more.

Harrison extricates himself from Barry’s ass, and withdraws his arm from the space between their bodies, the sadistic asshole. He asks, “Do you want me to stop?”

“Never,” Barry says, fine vibrations shivering across his body. “Don’t ever stop.”

He’s talking this man, who’s crawled under his skin despite everything, but also to a villain with his face, long gone. And he can’t – won’t – ever again admit that he loved Eobard Thawne out loud; still, Harrison would be a fool to miss it when he ruts back, insistent against the pressure of Harrison’s unclad dick, entreating, “Dr. Wells,” the name edged in adoring supplication.

Harrison stills.

His disapproval hangs, blatant and loud in the air.

He kisses the tense lines of Barry’s neck and the wings of his shoulder blades, all the same. Then, Harrison shifts away, leaving Barry aching, the loss settling heavy beneath his ribcage.

He doesn’t expect it when Harrison slams forward, fucking into Barry so hard that he forgets his own name, Eobard’s, Jay’s. He forgets how to be sad, and Harrison’s fingertips tangle with his; a protective cage, splayed across his heart.

* * *

 

The detritus of Harrison’s bedroom is full of things Eobard would hate. Framed photos of Jesse, of Barry and Caitlin and Cisco at the lab. One of Iris’s articles, laminated and pinned by the door. Flash memorabilia and dog-eared science fiction books, Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick, the spines cracked and beat to hell. Thawne might have appreciated the subject material, but the disorder; oh, he’d despise it.

“The first time you came to me,” Harrison says, their ankles entwined where they sprawl lopsided on the crimson bed. “You wanted him.”

Barry’s gaping wounds are too sore to be poked and prodded like this. But he says, “Yes,” because Harrison Wells is the one person he doesn’t know how to mislead.

Wells nods, expecting it.

He pulls Barry more tightly into the circle of his arms and inquires, “What about now?”

Barry quietens, caught up in this – the memory of the first time he met Earth-2’s Harrison, with King Shark. Here was a man with a set to his mouth that haunted Barry’s every waking moment, a curse and a daydream all wrapped up in one. He had wanted him, desperately, and detested him in equal measure, leftover love raw in his gut and lungs and marrow.

That feeling never dissipated. It only grew stronger as he learned the similarities and differences between Harry and Dr. Wells:

A shared quick temper belied by the vast depths of kindness lurking under Harrison’s prickly exterior;

His unending capacity for loyalty, drowned out by his great aptitude for cruelty;

And his devotion to one Barry Allen, mirrored by a psychopath wearing his skin. Harrison’s so different from Eobard in a great many ways, unrefined and unpolished. But he’s incredibly similar where it makes the most difference, and that tears at Barry, a reminder he can’t quite allow.

Nuzzling against Harrison’s collarbone to hide his own fear, he asks, “Does it matter?”

It can’t. It won’t.

Barry can never tell if Harry likes him or finds him convenient, and sometimes he’s so utterly, chokingly fearful that it’s the former that he nearly can’t breathe. So he won’t let it be. He won’t even consider that Harrison Wells is capable of loving him.

He made that mistake before, with Linda and Patty and Iris and Jay.

With Eobard, and all the devastation that followed.

But if Barry were facing Harrison, he might see the quicksilver hurt that flickers across his features, heat lightning that he wears on the bridge of his nose and the warning rumble of thunder in his throat.

Since he’s not, he misses it, emotion that is there and gone in a flash.

Harrison says, “No. I suppose not.”

* * *

 

“And where’s Diana on this fine evening?”

“Kicking ass and taking names.” Oliver grouches, leaning back in his chair. “What else is new?” He focuses on Barry, giving him all the attention he normally reserves for things that are pointy and lethal. “You’re smiling too much.”

“No, no, Ollie. Smiling is a thing normal people do plenty. You should try it sometime.”

As if sensing that their conversation is one that he can never condone, Bruce wanders into the old courthouse with crossed arms and a hawkish glare.

Oliver immediately assumes similar posture, straightening in his seat, because it would be truly abominable if he was bested at misery by a teenager.

In the chair to Ollie’s right, Kara leans over and pokes the man in his frowny bits. She says, “Look at those grump lines. Bruce, if you keep making that face, you’re going to grow up to look just like the Green Arrow.”

Bruce scoffs, like he is and always will be the best broody billionaire vigilante.

Oliver, to his credit, sits solidly while Kara molests him, prodding her fingers into the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth and eyes.

The weirdness is broken by Snart, who thumps into the hall with purpose, stopping just behind Bruce. Who also…just doesn’t move.

Barry supposes if Ollie’s going to do his best rendition of a statue, then Bruce feels it’s his right to match him. Or something. He doesn’t really get either of them, if he’s being honest here.

“Young Master Wayne.” Snart inspects Bruce from head to toe, evaluating either his hygiene, his capacity for criminal masterminding, or how much he could hawk the kid’s watch for.

Barry doesn’t pretend to understand how Captain Cold’s mind works, either.

Snart says, “Chipper as ever, I see.”

The look Bruce cuts Snart’s way is homicidal, but then, most of Bruce’s expressions are. He bites out a stiff, “Captain Cold,” his highborn manners kicking in despite himself.

“So. Much. Glaring,” Kara intones, and then she swings her arms around Bruce and Snart’s shoulders. They both _oof_ with the added weight of her alien-strong biceps. Then they try really hard to make like they hadn’t. “Why can’t we all just get along?”

Snart, who has had years of practice with eternal optimists (See: Ray Palmer) is not half as ensorcelled by Kara’s upbeat charm as he should be. Snart also enjoys activities like petty theft and kicking puppies in his free time, so Barry tries not to judge him too harshly for his apathy.

Bruce, meanwhile, is utterly affronted by the potential Kara’s proximity provides for peace-cooties, and shudders, trying and failing to shove her away. “Get off,” he pleads, voice high and thin, like the adolescent he is.

Serenely, Kara pets his head and otherwise doesn’t so much as twitch.

Oliver regards them all with a mixture of ill-concealed amusement and resignation, more and more the only flavor of affection he’s capable of conveying. Barry slips into the chair on his free side and announces, “Hear ye, hear ye, it’s time to discuss justice!”

“Today’s topic is why murder is bad, which should be intuitive,” Kara says, side-eying everyone in the room but Barry, “And apparently is not.”

Bruce and Ollie roll their eyes. Snart lays his gun gingerly on the big table, and then withdraws a butterfly knife from his parka, which he begins to use to clean beneath his nails.

Great. This is already going so well. Barry can barely contain his excitement.

Not.

* * *

 

Wally’s sitting on the porch swing, one foot kicking out a rhythmic beat while he scans long lines of mathematic equations, only half of his attention on the work. The other is on the phone clutched against one ear; he’s talking animatedly to someone about what appears to be…physics?

Barry only catches the tail end of it, Wally hanging up as he approaches.

“Who was that?” Barry asks, gesturing to the phone. He wants friends who call and talk to him about science. Cisco does, occasionally, but it usually devolves into an analysis of which Star Wars was the best Star Wars, and if he’ll ever get to see a girl naked again in his lifetime.

Caitlin doesn’t talk about naked girls, but she also rarely, if ever, makes phone calls, too wrapped up in her work at the lab.  

“Jesse,” Wally flashes his teeth, and in the blinding light of it, it takes Barry a minute to remember that she and Wally have become great friends.

“How is she?” Barry settles beside him on the swing. “Harry mentioned she’s on her, what, sixth PhD?”

“It might be her seventh?” Wally guesses, crinkling his nose in bewilderment. “There’s a real possibility she’s out for world domination.”

Wincing, Barry allows, “She’d be a benevolent dictator.”

Laughing loud and lightning bright, Wally slumps against Barry’s shoulder.

“You know, I thought when I got super powers, I’d get out of doing homework.” He glares down at the math, scribbled hastily on a notebook. Barry can only make out a quarter of it. “They didn’t put this in the brochure.”

“Oh, I could have told you that. I’ve got a pile of cold cases back at the station about a mile high.”

“I can imagine. Did you hear about those heists, on the news? You on that?”

Shaking his head, Barry says, “Haven’t heard about them. But if they’re a big deal, your dad will get me on the case sooner rather than later.”

“You’re his secret weapon,” Wally agrees, and where once his voice would have flooded with resentment, now he says it earnestly, and with admiration. Barry’s so caught up in that; the way that things change, spin on their head so suddenly, that he barely hears when Wally adds, “He’s sleeping.”

The intent in his voice is crystal clear, and like in most things, lately, Barry has no idea what to do about it. He meets Wally’s gaze and says, “Wow. Early night.”

Wally stares back reprovingly, waiting for Barry to respond to his invitation. And because Barry has zero self-control these days, he does.

He’s not even clear on how they make it to the kitchen, but the broad planes and ridges of Wally’s back are laid out before him, every notch of his spine shadowed in the low glow of the refrigerator. He makes a noise, urgent and high, and Barry forces himself to still.

He warns, “You’ll wake Joe.”

Wally cranes back to grin wickedly. “Imagine if he caught us.”

Barry shivers, cold in his bones. “I’d rather not.”

Joe could take it, probably.

It’s Barry who is in no way equipped to handle that.

* * *

 

Afterwards, he thinks he should feel guilty. It’s not fair to Wally or Harrison, even if Wally has no expectations, and Wells…well.

Honest affection eludes Barry more and more these days.

Which, what kind of superhero does that make him? When he is so damn scared to feel?

He wonders if he should blame that on Eobard, or Hunter, or if he always would have been like this – but no. It’s them.

It has to be them.

Eobard Thawne killed his mother.

Hunter Zolomon killed his father.

And before that, he loved both of them with an obsessive intensity that nearly broke Barry in half. That would fuck anyone up.

Lying on his own in bed that night, with the nightmares threatening to spill into his waking hours, all Barry knows is this:

Evil men live forever.

In memory, if nothing else.

* * *

 

“I want the pink one,” Barry declares, jabbing his index finger emphatically at the menu.

Amused, Iris replies, “Of course you do,” and then she takes care of ordering their drinks – whiskey for her, some kind of fancy gimlets for Felicity and Caitlin, and something fuchsia and slathered in strawberry liqueur for Barry.

He drinks for taste, now, okay?

“Hey, so how are things at the lab?” Felicity asks Caitlin.

She grins.

“They’d be better if my boss would give me a raise.” Under the table, she squeezes Barry’s knee. “How about it, boss?”

Barry snorts, a loud guffaw that is lost a little in the incessant hum of conversation pervading the lounge. “I’m not even sure how we pay the electricity, much less you.”

“Cisco has a few patents that are doing well,” Felicity replies, and at everyone’s surprise, she says, “With me, actually.”

That gets Barry’s attention. “I’m sorry, are you trying to seduce my friends with your bank account?”

She sniffs dramatically. “I’m trying to lure incredibly talented scientists away from that hovel you call a lab into the shiny, hallowed halls of Smoak Tech. But Caitlin keeps turning me down.”

Barry tells her, “Now you’re definitely not getting a raise.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of positive reinforcement?” Caitlin wails, but there’s no real sorrow in her voice. She loves her job, Barry knows. “Iris, how’s work?”

“The news cycle never ends,” Iris replies, grinning widely at Barry. “It helps that I’ve always got the inside scoop. Has Barry mentioned my volunteer work to you guys?”

Barry groans.

“No!” Felicity’s eyes spark with interest and mischief, combined. “Spill.”

“I was asked to consult on the Flash museum.”

“Oh, yeah!” Caitlin grins. “How is that?”

“They haven’t asked if I can get my hands on Barry’s underwear yet, but it’s a close thing.”

“It’s not!” Barry yelps. “It’s totally not. Wait, is it?”

He’s still frightened by this level of fame – flattered, yes – but he feels woefully inadequate for the amount of attention his alter ego receives. An entire museum dedicated to him is both an honor and somehow, deeply invasive, like maybe if they dig too deep they’ll find the man behind the mask and call the whole thing off.

“Oliver is practically radioactive with jealousy. No one’s building the Green Arrow a museum. He doesn’t even get a park bench dedication.”

“He should try smiling more,” Caitlin suggests. “I hear that works wonders for a hero’s reputation.”

Felicity confides, “He’s scared that once he starts, he won’t be able to stop.”

Iris wrinkles her nose. “With his allergy to happiness? I think he’ll be fine.”

The girls laugh, the conversation gravitating back to a scandal Iris broke last week with the mayor, and then one of Smoak Technology’s victories in the field of cyber warfare. Caitlin gives an analysis of what she’s doing in the lab, parsing out the biometric readings provides by metas versus normal persons.

It all leaves Barry both impressed and a bit cold. He’d once thought, by now, he’d be heading CCPD’s forensics department, but so much of his time is spent fighting crime instead of tracking it.

He thinks of the cases stacked high on his desk and winces. Barry wouldn’t give up his powers – again – for anything, but his personal life and his career; they’d have been vastly different if the lightning never came, after the explosion.

It’s hard to sit there and have no kind of input, cowed by these girls who are such complete and total badasses. Barry sips at his pink drink, strawberries and bitterness in his mouth. And then he shoves it all away, because wallowing isn’t what he does, or who he is.

He moves forward.

Even when it hurts, he moves forward.

* * *

 

Cisco is at Wells’s house, because apparently they are crafting a strange friendship over interior design and a shared love of watching old movies – Wells, often for the first time.

“He’d never seen Casablanca,” Cisco complains, sucking on a lollipop that is staining his mouth blood-red while Wells leans against the giant, golden statue of the Flash, polishing his massive gun.

It’s one of the only things other than Jesse and that damn hat that he brought over from Earth-2, and as far as Barry can tell, he treats it like a beloved pet. Harrison strokes a rag and some oil over the sleek, black surface of the metal, shooting back, “You’ve never seen Chiaroscuro,” and the reference goes right over both of their heads, so they do the sensible thing and ignore him.

That’d be easier for Barry to do if he couldn’t feel Well’s eyes on his ass, but he leans into it anyway, asking Cisco, “Hey, have you heard anything on the wire about some kind of robberies? Ones the police can’t wrap their heads around?”

“Oh!” Cisco pops the lollipop out from between his lips. “You mean the killer clown.”

“Is that what they’re calling it?”

“No, that’s what it is. He’s a guy, dressed like a clown.”

Dubiously, Harrison says, “I haven’t heard anything about that.”

“You refuse to use the TV to watch anything other than QVC,” Cisco retorts. “Besides, I heard it on the hack we’ve got on CCPD’s radios. Joe hasn’t mentioned it?”

“No. I heard about it from Wally,” Barry replies, determinedly not thinking about any of the other things he heard from Wally, like _yes, Barry, please_.

“Is he trying to date my daughter?” Harrison asks, poking the rag into some sort of indent in the gun’s frame. “He needs my permission to date my daughter.”

“Careful,” Cisco laughs. “Harry’s already brought out the shotgun.”

“Jesse’s an adult. She can do what she wants,” Barry tells him, and there is a sick, slimy thing in his belly. He doesn’t like it much. “Wally didn’t say anything about a clown.”

“That’s the most important part!” Cisco exclaims. He shudders, sucking adamantly on the lollipop. “Hate clowns. Stupid clowns. Creepy fuckers.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Barry glances towards Harry, still lathing affection on his firearm. Over his head, the golden figure of Barry, mid-run, looms. “Did you like Casablanca?”

Harrison deadpans, “Frankly, my dear, I couldn’t hear a word of it over Cisco pausing the movie and going, _this is the best part_!”

“It was the best part!” Cisco protests.

“The whole movie?”

“Yes.”

Harrison shakes his head, but adds, “We’re watching Starship Troopers tomorrow night,” and his meaning is perfectly clear. Barry takes a breath, heart pounding in his chest.

He’s going to say yes. He’s going to try to be better, about all of this.

“Man,” Cisco crows, before Barry can say anything at all. He’s staring at a mark on Barry’s hip, where his shirt has ridden up. “That is a massive hickey. Harry, you’ve _gotta_ lay off my boy.”

Inscrutable, Harrison glances at the mark marring Barry’s pale skin.

He never would have noticed, Barry thinks. Barry wouldn’t have let him notice, and now…

Harrison replies, “I’m innocent, your honor,” before returning to lovingly polishing his gun.

Cisco’s mouth gapes open, something inadvisable perched on his tongue as he looks between Wells and Barry, the stick of the lollipop bobbing uncertainly. Barry interrupts, “Hey, have you told Snart you’re into his sister yet? Because he’s in town!”

That probably wasn’t the best move either, because Harry pauses, rag limp over the sleek, black surface of the firearm. He says, “If you idiots came here to gossip, get out.”

Cisco hooks Barry’s arm, dragging him out of the foyer and into the night, where Central City is alive. The stars are bright, burning holes in the sky, and the cicadas buzz and hum, hidden in the folds of bougainvillea petals. But all that is lost on Cisco, who remarks, “Ooh. He mad.”

Miserably, Barry asks, “Picked up on that, did you?”

“Not my fault you’re playing the field behind Harry’s back.”

“He’s not my- my boyfriend, or whatever it is you think.”

“I think he digs you. And- look, I’m not Harry’s biggest fan, what with how his face still gives me night terrors. But. He’s been there for us, these past few years. He’s been there, Barry.”

“I know,” Barry says, and he thinks of Iris’s byline, pinioned next to Harry’s doorframe and the way, eons ago, that Harrison was bound and determined to get Barry’s speed back when they all presumed it was lost. “He deserves more.”

Cautiously, Cisco begins, “Is this about- are you scared? That Wells is playing the long con? That he’s-“

“No! No.” Barry bites down against his sudden surge of fear. “You’d know, wouldn’t you? That’s the sort of thing you can…”

He wiggles his fingers, meaning vibe, but Cisco shrugs. “I’m not Harry Potter. Thawne would know how to get past me.”

It’s a callous admission, one that strikes at the roots of Barry’s terror, but it’s also not what he’s terrified of, not really. This Harrison Wells has a daughter, and a temper. He’s the antithesis of Eobard, who was all smooth manners and sociopathic charm, and while the crankiness would be an impressive misdirect, Barry is certain that there’s not any evil plot afoot.

Sex with Eobard was always electric, lightning arcing through his veins when they fucked – made love, Barry used to call it, even when it was rough and desperate and he came yowling into the side of Dr. Wells’s neck. He thought, for a long time, that it was just like that with men. Now he knows that speedsters – Eobard, Hunter, Wally – they generate that static cling, the spark that grows this side of painful when they collide.

Harrison can make him see supernovas, can make him hear the low roll of thunder beneath his ribcage as he trembles through an orgasm, but what exists between them isn’t a live current. The speed force is not a hook under Harrison’s sternum that won’t ever, ever let go.

“Harry’s not…he’s not…”

“Voldemort?” Cisco guesses.

Barry grimaces. “He’s not Thawne. He’s not anything like Thawne.”

“But you’re going to break his heart anyway,” Cisco says, eyes dark in the indigo velvet of evening. “Why would you do that?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Barry says firmly. “Wells isn’t that invested in me, Cisco. We’re just screwing around.”

Cisco’s mouth settles into a thin line, disapproval and worry clear. But finally, he says, “Okay. If you’re sure. Barry?”

“Yeah?”

“If you tell Snart I’m into Lisa, I’m going to put itching powder in your super suit.”

Barry swallows. “Understood.”

* * *

 

“So this is the museum.”

Iris glances around proudly, half-unwrapped busts of Barry sitting in at least three directions, near glassed-in cases of artifacts left behind from rogues Barry’s defeated, and print editions of newspapers featuring him. Most have Iris’s name in big, bold letters right beneath the headlines. “It’s a work in progress. You like?”

“I hate it,” Barry says, “But that’s not going to make a difference, will it?”

“You don’t hate it,” Iris says, because she knows him better than anyone. “Don’t worry. The humiliation will wear off eventually. What’s up?”

“Can’t I visit my favorite person?”

“It’s a workday. It’s work hours. The Captain will skin you alive if he finds out you snuck out.” 

“I’ve got an in with him.” Barry grins. “Seeing as he’s my dad and everything.”

On her knees, surrounded by tissue paper and bubble-wrap, Iris laughs, loud and bright. “He misses being a detective, doesn’t he?”

Barry snorts, slumping down beside her. “What’s there to miss? No one can keep Joe behind a desk.”

He folds his long limbs underneath himself, trying to situate his legs in the chaos that is the Flash museum. “I still can’t believe this is happening.”

Iris knocks their shoulders together. “You’re inspirational.”

“I’m a mess.”

“What else is new? Still worried Caitlin’s going to leave S.T.A.R. Labs?”

“No,” Barry pouts. “I gave her a raise.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I did a bad thing.”

“I’ve told you before, no one cares when you return library books a day late.”

“Not that.” He scowls, because she’s not taking him seriously, except she is, of course. That’s what Iris does; she makes him smile when he’s falling into a funk. “I pissed Harry off.”

Iris is unimpressed. She leans back on her palms, her long fingers curling against the tiled floor. “Everything pisses Harry off.”

“This time it was me. I…hurt his feelings.”

“Did you steal his gun?”

“ _Iris_ ,” Barry wheezes, and it’s a pained chuckle, but it’s still a chuckle.

“Tell him you’re sorry.”

“I don’t think he’s going to believe me.”

“Why not?”

 _Because he knows what this is_ , Barry wants to say. _What we are, what we’ve always been. He knows that I used him to fill a Harrison Wells shaped space, and he let me because…because_ …Barry doesn’t actually understand why Harrison let him, even if he suspects, on occasion.

“Sorry’s not going to be enough,” Barry says evasively. “Trust me on this one.”

Iris reaches for his hand. “I trust you on everything. You’ll work it out, Bar.”

Not for the first time, Barry wishes that they could work it out, fulfill the destiny he saw for them in the future, or on Earth-2. Iris is his other half, probably.

But the Barry Allen she was meant for doesn’t exist anymore.

* * *

 

He gets to the next meeting early and finds Oliver and Bruce waiting on the front steps.

“We’re cancelling today,” Bruce says glumly, because justice is pretty much the only thing he isn’t glum for. “The Waverider’s stuck in Pompeii, and Diana took Kara to fight some aliens. No one takes me to fight aliens.”

“You’ll have your chance,” Oliver says consolingly.

Bruce glares at him. “What do you know?”

“More than you, kiddo.” Oliver turns on Barry, inquiring, “What’s got you down?”

“Who says I’m down?”

“The part where you’re not bouncing. And your eyes are doing that squinty thing you do when you’re unhappy.” Barry opens his mouth to object, because there is absolutely not a squinty thing he does when he’s depressed, but Oliver is already barreling on, “And the part where Iris called me and told me you were moping and that somebody had to cheer you up.”

“Iris would not tell you to cheer me up.”

Oliver crosses his arms. “Iris and I are buds.”

“Buds?” Barry sounds skeptical. Barry is skeptical, so that’s okay.

“Buds,” Oliver confirms. “I’m her insider on all the news over at Star City.”

“What news? You shoot people with pointy things,” Bruce mutters. “There’s nothing new about it.”

“Okay, Dark Knight.” Oliver frowns at him. “I’m bringing a brighter tomorrow to the downtrodden.” Barry and Bruce both raise their eyebrows at him. Defensively, Oliver says, “I’m trying to rebrand. Seriously, Barry. What’s up? Girl problems?”

Bruce makes a face.

Oliver says, "It's understandable. You've been single for a long time. Do you even remember what girls like? Oh, wait, is that the problem?"

"No! No, I'm not- ugh." Barry glares at Oliver. "Dick."

Oliver almost actually grins.

Sullen, Barry replies, “I'm having...boy problems.”

“That is the least heterosexual thing I’ve ever heard,” Oliver says.

Barry cocks and eyebrow. “When did I ever give you the impression that I’m in any way heterosexual?”

He’s got to hand it to Oliver. The man doesn’t move a muscle; not even a twitch of surprise. “Fair enough.”

“Gross,” Bruce says, and then he follows it up with a much more approving, “But girls are gross too,” and it’s the closest thing Barry’s ever got to recognition from the tiny vigilante.

“Thanks, Batsy,” he says, and ruffles Bruce’s hair.

Bruce squirms and mutters, “Get off.”

"I can't exactly give you tips in bed for that," Oliver admits. "There was one time..."

"Stop. Stop now," Barry pleads. "Everything is fine. In bed."

For half a second, Barry almost thinks Oliver is going to say, _that's what she said_ , but the Green Arrow is way too dignified for that. Maybe. What he does instead is say, “I won’t pretend to know, uh, anything about love. But I hear talking helps.” Oliver shifts uncomfortably. He clarifies, “Communication.”

“I know what communication is, Ollie.”

“Then try that,” Oliver orders, and Barry can’t really imagine trying to communicate all the things he feels to Wells, who is one of the most reticent, belligerent people Barry’s ever had the pleasure of encountering. But then he remembers how it felt to be entwined on the red canvas of Harrison’s bed, dread and bliss in his marrow.

It’s hard when he’s with Harrison, so difficult not to feel like he’s running straight towards some unknown future, hoping and hoping and praying it will be brighter than what he leaves behind – than both his nightmares and those glimpses of destiny, of Iris Allen-West. He’s forging a divergent path here, and every time before he’s fucked it up _hard_.

Awkwardly, Barry scratches the back of his neck. He shifts from foot to foot. He asks, “Do you think we could go find Diana and Kara and the aliens?”

“Please?” Bruce begs, breaking the tension of the conversation. He’s never this eager about anything other than delivering potential beat downs.

Oliver, an equal fan of fighting the good fight, considers it. “Felicity might have a beat on a spaceship.”

* * *

 

Joe says, “That’s not breakfast.”

“It looks like breakfast to me. What are we watching?” Barry heaves himself down on the couch beside Joe, college basketball blaring bright on the screen. His muscles are still residually sore from a night spent meting out intergalactic justice, but it’s a good ache.

He piles a mouthful of Lucky Charms onto a spoon and eats it, meticulously careful about spilling any milk on the sofa. Joe watches, amused. “Long night?”

“Did you know Martians come in colors other than green?”

“Nope. And I don’t want to know. I was happy thinking Martians are make believe.”

“But-“

“Fairy tales,” Joe enunciates, a tiny grin tugging at the corner of his lips. “How’s the Justice League coming?”

“We’re not calling it the Justice League.”

“It’s a great name! Catchy.”

“It makes us sound like cartoon characters.”

“You are a cartoon character,” Joe tells him with a laugh. He squeezes Barry’s shoulder and says, “My son, the superhero.”

“Both your sons, the superheroes,” Barry corrects, glancing towards the driveway. Wally’s car is gone, even though he can get anywhere twice as fast at a run. Wally says he still likes the rumble of the engine, and Barry’s never pushed the issue. “Did you see that Cisco is building Wally a suit?”

Sternly, Joe says, “To reduce friction, when he’s late for class. He’s not allowed to go around saving people until he graduates.”

This is a talk that’s been had in the West household. Frequently. Barry says, “Yeah, yeah,” with about the same amount of levity that Wally usually manages, right before he delivers petty thieves to CCPD’s door.

Speaking of, Barry starts, “Hey, is there anything going on that you want to tell me about?”

“Such as?”

Barry cocks his head, about to say robberies, right as the toaster dings. “Hold that thought,” Joe commands, and he saunters into the kitchen, where the scent of English muffins, butter, and jam is thick. Barry leans into the couch cushions, watching ASU score against Louisiana, when the screen is hijacked by the local news.

He chases a rainbow shaped marshmallow through eddies of milk, absently watching the newscaster with her pretty blonde hair or her serious face. If he’s got to leap to his feet and save the city again, he wants to at least swallow down a few more bites of cereal.

“…in the latest of a string of larceny cases,” the woman says, and that gets Barry’s attention. He focuses on the TV and promptly chokes on his cereal.

There, outlined in blurry pixels is a streak of electricity. Beneath it, the news banner reads:

 _Man in Yellow Terrorizing Central City Again_.


End file.
